Workaholism

yeah, I definitely did. It was partly a compensation mechanism, and partly an escape from a life that was very painful. I felt like the only way that I could get approval was to outwork and outperform everyone. and I think that living a life that was a lie made me good at putting on masks, and meeting everyone's expectations, and this played out in all aspects of my life; at work, it played out as perfectionism

 

Being at work a lot more than average (i.e. "married to the job") was a convenient reason for being single/not dating/etc...

 

Oh I know this. :icon_sad:

 

It how I spent my late 20s and early 30s.

 

That would be me.

For the first time in my life, I'm taking time off. And it's almost impossible. The day after I stopped working, I was already looking for consulting jobs.

Like many here, I'm a "pleaser:" desperate for approval that I could only find in work. And work was a punishing reason to avoid my unrewarding social, family, and romantic life.

So I finally took the personal and financial risk to stop. In June, I got pneumonia, shingles, then pneumonia again. And I'm an otherwise healthy guy. So I took that as a sign that I had no choice.

I admit that I'm still painfully tired and exhausted, and quite a bit fearful. But work was really killing me.

It's by no means unique to gay guys, but it is indeed a defence mechanism.

 

"Workaholics allow others to determine their value"

I think ties in with the whole need to please others and receive validation for it.

4 Subtle Differences Between Workaholics And High Performers | Business Insider

 

Ditto.

 

Dependence on external evaluation.

EXACTLY.

I've spent decades of my life waiting for a compliment or disparagement. There are many forces at play: higher education and a high pressure family in which everyone "kept score."

But there's the horrible nagging undercurrent of knowing that I have disappointed many when I came out to them. And there is no way correct it. Although it's not rational, it feels like an irreparable deficiency, and I spent too much of my life trying to please everyone else in other ways.

A former coworker burst out laughing at one point a couple of months ago. I'm living in a temporary apartment, and I was worried about irritating the landlords since I have about eight or nine cardboard boxes with my belongings in them. This apartment costs an INSANE amount of money per month, and my coworker thought it was hilarious that I would be worried. Of course the landlords could care less, but I somehow want them to be happy with me (I'm sure that they're very happy, especially when they look at their bank account.)

 

When I was working, my sexuality wasn't an issue, I didn't come out to myself yet, but I wasn't anxious to return home to my husband either, so maybe you have a point. But I used to think that I love my profession so much that's why I enjoyed working late. Now I don't know why I would do that, where I can be enjoying my kids childhood before they fly out the nest.

 

I buried myself under tons of work in college that way I wouldn't have to deal with my sexuality. I rarely went out and met new people. It's what I regret the most about my college years. I'm still very busy, but things have changed for the better. I decided that it was about time I figure things out, and even though I still have a long way to go, I'm very happy with how things are going atm.

 

In thinking back, I think I had workaholic tendencies in high school. My 10th grade literature teacher, for example, required 1 book report per quarter IIRC. One could do additional book reports for extra credit, and I did just that. It was a pointless exercise: even without extra credit, I'd still have gotten my "A".

Indeed, I was grade obsessed. I actually kept a teacher's grade book in my desk at home, in which I carefully recorded each and every grade. I knew exactly how each teacher calculated his or her grades, and so I carefully tracked my performance to ensure that I was getting that all-important "A." For 3 of my 4 years, I got almost nothing below an "A".

My worst grade during that 3 year period was in physics. I was never great with math, and that class was not easy. With lots of work, I managed to get a "B+" or something like that. But I was less than happy...it was not that All Important "A". And no matter how many hours of homework I did, no matter how many times I retook tests (my teacher allowed this for those hoping to improve their grades), my grade remained stuck at "B+".

And I carried this pattern forward into a year at a local college. My arts appreciation class demanded a journal discussing events we went to. I was probably the only person in that class who not only word processed the journal, but also paid attention to the page layout. (To be fair, I had a new toy computer to play with...)

And...well, I could go on and on.

What I'm not sure of now is why I was the way I was. Was I trying to distract myself from problems in my life, like the fact that I was seemingly the only kid in high school whose social life had zero life? (Maybe, maybe not--I certainly other interests to distract me.) Was it because it made others happy--my mother just loved seeing those "A's" (although I don't think she was at all unhappy with the B+ from physics). Or did it somehow help prop up self esteem? Or...

Past this, workaholism was nothing unheard of in our family. My father also had workaholic tendencies. He had 7 day work weeks (although weekends were only partial days), and when we went to visit my grandparents, he'd even take along a briefcase with work he could do.

 

Oh this is so me. I have buried myself in my work since my personal life is nonexistent. It gets painful to be home alone all the time. The thing is I have been doing this now for 15 years, and I am starting to burn out.

 

I'm thinking of 10+ years over the past two decades during which I've definitely been a workaholic — the need to work hard and please others at the expense of my own joy and self-worth, avoiding myself and my sexuality along the way. This, of course, has burned me out, leading to unhappiness and loneliness.

Although I've cut way back, I feel shame and guilt for not working as many hours as I used to and for saying "no" more frequently. But the universe hasn't collapsed, and I feel somewhat less stressed for not working so much. I've still got a long way to go on the loneliness/happiness journey, but I know that workaholism isn't on the pathway to a brighter future.

 

Working late is an excuse for me to see my crush for longer. But I discovered I'll happily work late when she's not there as an excuse to avoid going home to a loveless marriage.

 

This is something I'm now realizing about myself. Although I'm still doing seasonal work because permanent jobs are difficult to come by in my profession, I've filled my free time and the voids in my social/romantic life with more and more volunteer work. I've been at the point where I can't reasonably take on any more volunteer work for a while now, and am only now realizing that I need to learn to say "no". I'm starting to feel stress from all I've agreed to do and whenever criticism comes now, I have a hard time not taking it personally (although with my depression, my thoughts tend to assume the negatives). I used to be motivated and energized, but now I'm questioning why the hell I'm even devoting my time to some of this stuff when I don't feel appreciated. And there's the rub: it's hard to feel appreciated when I have a hard time appreciating and valuing myself.

My new year's resolution is definitely to try to work on self-improvement in regards to my self-esteem, which is going to require some free time where I'm not juggling so much. Serenity now!

 

Working hard and doing a lot of volunteer work helped me coping with not having a fulfilling personal life. Knowingly, I came to see it as my escape from reality. And that reality was loneliness and a lack of affection. Of course, that escape failed, as reality usually hits back even harder. In my case, problems with my physical health brought both feet firmly on the ground again.

Although this sounds very negative, it wasn't all bad. In my professional life, I did some really fun things, which I wouldn't want to have missed for the world. AND because of my volunteer work, I met my current boyfriend.

Currently, I still work hard and I still do volunteer work. But now, things are much more balanced, and to be honest, much more productive.